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 How Science Modißes Legal Principles.

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HOW SCIENCE MODIFIES LEGAL PRINCIPLES. Д TREATISE on the law of evidence, -iX of the imprint of 1800, would in an hundred instances need correctional notes for a new edition as to doctrines novel and in deed startling, of recent enunciation; and none so emphatically as in regard to the inroads which the progress of science has made upon old legal principles. When half a century ago photographs were allowed to be placed in evidence as aids toward, or in verification of, identity, and when the newly invented word telegram came under the eyes of testimony as a judicial exception to the rule concerning hearsay evidence, many veteran lawyers shook their heads negatively and per haps forebodingly. When chemists and other experts usurped the functions of jury men in deciding weight of poisonous circum stances, or of handwriting or of insanity, challenges to the propriety of such innova tions became rife in the profession. But stranger innovations seem impending. What for instance do octogenarian lawyers think of making affidavit by telephone with an affiant thousands of miles distant from the scrivener who is to prepare the deposition and from the notary who administers the oath over as many miles of magnetic wires? That procedure has been sanctioned in Supreme Court Chambers at New York City by Jus tice Beekman. A plaintiff residing within the New York jurisdiction named Rothier held a claim for moneys had and received against a Cincinnati broker named Altenburg, with opportunity to attach in New York certain property belonging to the latter. But the plaintiff was absent from New York and only he could execute the necessary moving affidavit. In this dilemma, and fear ing that the attachable property might be removed from jurisdiction before plaintiff re turned in propria persona, the absent plain tiff's attorney bethought himself of telephonic

use. He caused over the long-distance tele phone the plaintiff to be summoned to the Cincinnati end of the instrument, and over it to dictate a deposition. A notary was with the plaintiff's attorney at the New York end of the telephone. Both attorney and notary could recognize and knew the plaintiff's voice. The ordinary telephonic call and salutations were had. " You are Mr. Rothier," calls the notary, and answer came, " I am." The no tary then administers the oath, and the plain tiff holding in his hand a Bible repeats it and kisses the book. Then the plaintiff, with mouth to the Cincinnati transmitter, to his attorney, with ear at the New York tube, re cites a short affidavit, and sentence by sen tence the attorney repeats it to a stenog rapher, who writes it all down and then it is moulded into an affidavit by the attorney, who swears to its contents on information and belief as derived that day from an orally sworn statement of the plaintiff made to him. Upon this affidavit, which further af firmed the voice in Cincinnati to have been that of the New York residential plaintiff, the justice issued a warrant of attachment on the moneys in New York belonging to the Cincinnati defendant. The next innovation may be a dying dec laration in a murder case talked in presence of witnesses into a phonograph, from which to be repeated to a jury. Perhaps, too, kinetoscopic pictures, taken by policemen during a riot or by a friend of a beaten wife during an altercation with the brutal husband, may be admitted in evidence. X-rays may also come into court under many circumstances, and become pretexts for deciding controverted facts; so that the chapter upon hearsay in the treatises of Greenleaf or Taylor may have to be re-written. Science having had its innings in religious matters, can also play games with legal doctrines.